


Five Times Erik Couldn't Sleep, And One Time He Didn't Care

by Dorkangel



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alex Does Not Approve, Angst and Humor, Azazel's tail is made of awesome, Charles Is a Big Dorkface, Emotionally Constipated Erik, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Janos is Cold as Hell Frozen Over, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Moira - Freeform, Non-Graphic Violence, Peter is Irritating, Raven Does What She Does, Sleep, Sleep Deprivation, Stoner Sean, and Erik's lack of it, in this case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 03:42:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2532836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorkangel/pseuds/Dorkangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exactly what it says on the tin.<br/>Erik keeps being woken in the middle of the night by all kinds of things. He has learnt a few things from this:<br/>1. Sean Cassidy shouldn't smoke pot at midnight.<br/>2. Hank's creative process works best at midnight.<br/>3. Moira and Raven come up with some strange conversations at midnight.<br/>4. Some midnights, Charles has nightmares too.<br/>5. ...midnight is not an appropriate time to regret leaving a certain telepath.<br/>+1. Quicksilver is annoying to sleep next to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Erik Couldn't Sleep, And One Time He Didn't Care

5 Times Erik Couldn't Sleep, and 1 Time He Didn't Care

1.  
The first time Erik was woken up, on his first night at Charles's mansion, it was to the sound of Alex and Sean screaming at each other.  
"It's called pot!" yelled Sean, and Erik rolled his eyes.  
"I know what it's fucking called!" yelled Alex back. "I just don't think you should be fucking smoking it in our room at one in the morning!"  
The boy's voice increased in volume towards the end, and Sean, ridiculously stoned and floatingly high, stumbled out of the room and into the corridor to escape it.  
"Just 'cos you've been in solitary." he slurred. "You've missed out on this, man. It's great."  
"For the millionth time, you insane ginger hippie, I know what pot is!"  
"Then try some!"  
"No!" Alex's voice was scandalised, and there was a sound that seemed suspiciously like Sean crashing dejectedly into a wall.  
"Square!"  
"Stoner!"  
"Yeah, and?"  
Alex groaned in frustration and slammed their door.  
"Hey," said Sean eventually, his voice soft and a little confused. "Summers, dude, I'm still outside."

2.  
The second time was to a crash downstairs, on his second night. He frowned, and the fire alarm went off for a couple of moments, then cut. Erik crawled to the window, and opened the curtains, and Hank could be seen anxiously biting his lip and attacking flaming mannequins with fire extinguishers.  
"What are you doing?" he called down, and Hank startled guiltily.  
"Umm, I was trying to get Alex's suit fixed, but it kinda... exploded?"  
"Ah." Erik nodded, and, feeling he should say SOMETHING, continued with, "Going well, then?"  
Hank shrugged awkwardly. "Hopefully it'll stop exploding?"  
"Yeah."  
He closed the window and went back to sleep, and (like the others) simply accepted that Hank's creative process worked best at ungodly hours.

3.  
The third time, it was to giggles outside his door.  
"I can't believe you!" squeaked Moira's voice, and Erik frowned.  
"It's true, it's true!" laughed Raven. "My blue form just... I don't know, DOESN'T."  
"So, you could-"  
"I frequently do!"  
"Have you ever-"  
"Yep."  
"Oh my gosh! In male and female-"  
"Yes! With both, too."  
"Jesus, Raven!" gasped Moira through her hands, still laughing. "I can't believe you do that."  
"It's really not that difficult." pointed out Raven. "I've been shapeshifting since I was four. I was born blue."  
"So, you'd be ok with...?"  
"Just shut up and kiss me!"  
Erik sighed and threw a pillow over his head.  
What Moira and Raven did in their own time was, he reasoned, no business of his.

4.  
The next time he was woken up, it was the night before Cuba, and a mental blast of terror shot through his half-sleeping mind as he attempted to get a few minutes of rest.  
He remembered for a moment the nightmares that had been such frequent visitors in the days after the liberation, and that sometimes still came, and thought that maybe that was what it had been.  
But then it shot through his mind again, along with the sensation of panicked breathing and running feet and the hallways of this place at night, and he realised that it wasn't him at all. It was Charles.  
Erik clambered out of bed and strode sleepily down to the telepath's room, knocking as loudly as he dared this time at night. "Charles," he hissed. "Charles, wake up. You're projecting."  
There was no answer but another image in his head, this one of a huge, shadowy figure with a cruel smile and huge fists.  
It knocked the wind out of Erik, and he had to take a shocked, deep breath before ramming Charles's door open with his shoulder.  
Charles himself was curled up in a minuscule ball in the middle of his bed, the covers around his ankles, his arms wrapped protectively around his head and his knees to his chest. His eyes were screwed tightly shut, but his lips moved in quiet sounds. When Erik walked hesitantly closer, he could hear words.  
"No, no," Charles was murmuring, his brow creased in absolute terror. "Cain, don't, please-"  
Who is Cain? wondered Erik. Because whoever he is, he has Charles explicitly terrified, and that can't be right...  
"Charles," he whispered again, laying his arm on that of his friend.  
All he received was a view of a little boy, curled up as Charles was now, in a corner of one of the panelled hallways. The shadowy figure stood over him.  
"Leave me alone," begged the little boy, his high, frightened voice, overlaying Charles's quiet, adult own. "Please, just leave me alone!"  
The figure laughed darkly, said something back (it was too hazy and indistinct for actual words to be made out), and raised one huge fist. The boy in the nightmare cried out quietly and buried his face in his hands, and the shrill voice of a little girl rang out behind him- "No! Cain, please, he didn't do anything!"  
Erik caught a glimpse of the owner of the voice, a tiny figure in a nightdress with blue, scaly skin and rumpled oily red hair. Her yellow eyes were wide with fear.  
The dark monster, Cain, snarled and turned towards her-  
"Charles!" shouted Erik, pulling himself away from the other man's past terrors. "Snap out of it!"  
Charles woke up with a strangled gasp, struggling away from the remains of his sheets.  
"E-Erik, I-"  
"You had a nightmare."cut Erik softly. "Simple as that."  
Charles nodded gratefully, relaxing a little, and shuffled up silently to let Erik lie down next to him.  
"Who was he?" asked Erik quietly. Charles closed his eyes.  
"My stepbrother."  
"Oh."  
"My telepathy wasn't strong enough to stop him yet, when I was little. It disconcerted him at first, of course," continued Charles exhaustedly. "But not for very long. It's nothing like what happen to you-"  
"It's still a nightmare." protested Erik. "But nothing more."  
Charles sighed. "Yes. Yes, I suppose you're right. Thank you, my friend."  
They slept side by side.

5.  
Three nights later, Erik couldn't sleep at all. Emma, recently broken out of prison and wary and dangerous as an injured dog, was in the equivalent of a meditative trance in the room one door over, Raven and Angel were asleep separately, and Azazel and Janos were snoring in each other's arms on the other side of him. Erik only knew this because he'd walked into their room by accident, and was just in time to see casually cruel, sneeringly silent Janos fold himself deeper into the arms of the red-skinned, demon-featured teleporter. Azazel, whom Erik had seen kill dozens of men just for his own amusement, was smiling into the fluffy dark hair of his- well, what was Janos to him, and vice versa? Lover? Boyfriend? Friend? Colleague? It was surreal.  
And, more importantly, it was far too close to his and Charles's odd relationship.  
He grit his teeth and turned to scream into the pillow.

+1  
Strangely , he had slept almost perfectly in the Pentagon. There had been little to do *but* sleep.  
They were all in a motel, and Logan had booked three rooms on the premise that Charles and Hank could share.  
Unfortunately, he hadn't reckoned on Peter being twitchy and jumped up and absolutely exhausted.  
"Man," the teenager had groaned (repeatedly) in the car on the way back, resting his silver head on Logan's bicep. "You have no idea how much actually RUNNING takes out of me."  
"Actually," Logan had muttered, allowing Peter to keep his head there for some reason. "I have an idea."  
"I went up a wall." Peter responded, sounding pretty impressed at himself. "And I acted normal. Be proud of me, strange hairy-man."  
So Peter was staying with them too.  
And sharing with Erik.  
Their beds were close together, and the kid moved as constantly in his sleep as he did when he was awake - twitching and jerking and humming Pink Floyd songs almost faster than it was possible to hear, running on the spot and, on the one occasion Erik managed to get some rest, kicking out and hitting the other man in the leg.  
Somehow, Erik didn't mind. There was another person next to him, someone alive, and, just as a bonus, it was someone who had broken into the Pentagon for his sake. Probably just because he was bored, but still. It was the thought that counted.


End file.
